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"I love that computer science has made mathematics into something like an experimental science. I was never all that good at proving things, but I love doing computer experiments."
- Rudy Rucker
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| Dray-Fish | ||
| Large fish trained to be harnessed to large houseboats. |
The citizens of Sirene appear to have little need for advanced electronics; most of their needs are met by the remarkable fecundity of the Titanic littoral. In this case, motive power for their houseboats is provided by large marine animals.
| He bent over the rails, peered down into the underwater pens where Toby and Rex, the slaves, were harnessing the dray-fish for the weekly trip to Fan, eight miles north. The youngest fish, either playful or captious, ducked and plunged... The fish were finally harnessed... The dray-fish strained, the harness tautened, the houseboat moved north. |
| Technovelgy from The Moon Moth,
by Jack Vance. Published by Pocket Books in 1976 Additional resources -
|
So, could fish provide motive power for a boat?
In 1936, Sir James Gray promulgated the following paradox: dolphins are observed to swim very fast, but if you calculate the available musculature, there is no where near enough power. Yet they do swim fast. Hence the paradox.
In 1960, it was hypothesized that the compliance (it has "give" to it due to the blubber that underlies it) of dolphin skin would delay water flowing over the skin, preventing turbulence. This would greatly reduce the factor of drag, and remove the paradox. More recently, however, it was shown that while dolphin skin reduces drag, it is also true that dolphin musculature provides significantly more power than a human being's - which is what Gray's calculations were based on. So there is no paradox, and yes, there could be dray-fish!
Take a look at the float-home, from Whipping Star, by Frank Herbert, for another way for a marine animal to power a boat.
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'Power could be compressed thus into an inch-square cube of what looked like blue-white ice'
'It's so light that you can set it up in five minutes by yourself...'
'Heavy penalties... were to be applied to any one found driving manually-controlled machines.'
'Buy a Little Dingbat... electropen, wrist watch, pocketphone, pocket radio, billfold ... all in one.'
'... an elastic, tinted material that had all the feel and appearance of human flesh and epidermis.'
'It is remarkable that the long leverages of their machines are in most cases actuated by a sort of sham musculature...'
